“You wan ta wha?”

“Take the meal outside. M’friends don’t like crowds. They’re waiting in our wagon.”

Ferene’s attention was drawn away from her own meal by the odd conversation taking place in the roadside tavern. A man donning a well-worn raincoat talked with the proprietor, confusing the heavily-bearded man with his strange request.

“Ya wan ta take a tray and dishes out? Will ye bring em back?”

“Of course!” The man in the raincoat replied. “I’ll uh, give you some extra coin as, as collateral, and you can give it back when I return them. Will that work? So you know I won’t run away with anything of yours.”

There was a short bit of silence, the bearded owner looking at whatever was in the coated man’s hand, followed by him nodding. “Honestly be a better deal for me if you took them, if that’s what you’re giving. Wait over there, I’ll have a girl bring it out shortly.” He said, limping over towards the kitchen. Ferene watched the man in the raincoat pull his hood back and run his hands through his short, black hair, then start shifting back and forth as he stood, waiting.

The situation stuck out as odd. The roadside inn was not overly crowded, less than ten people, with multiple empty tables. Ferene couldn’t help but think the man was hiding something. She considered leaving him alone, but decided against it. He might be in trouble, or he might be trouble. She hurriedly ate the rest of her bread and soup, then left the building. She had not paid for a room, only the food, planning on walking further tonight. Instead, she rounded the corner of the building, going the long way around to the side with a line of wagons. Peeking around the corner, she saw a wagon with two horses still roped to the front, but didn’t see any people. Leaning against the wall, she waited.

The man did nothing to hide his presence, his feet crunching along the ground as he walked up to the new wagon. Ferene waited, listening. The footsteps stopped, and she waited, giving him time to climb inside, before she quietly rounded the corner and crept forward.

“We’ll take the gag off of you so you can eat. You scream and we’ll have to run. You won’t be getting any more food if that happens. Don’t want to go hungry, do you?” The first voice was the man who had gotten the food.

“It would be better if-“

“Quiet!” The first of the two new voices sounded feminine, but a second masculine voice quickly cut that one off. “No talking, just eating. Say another word and you’ll be gagged again.”

Stepping closer to the back of the wagon, Ferene drew her short sword.

“One more day of this, and we’ll be able to give her away. Then nobody will be looking for us, when they look for her.” The third voice said.

“There’s no way we’ll get what she’s actually worth, but it’ll be enough.” Raincoat’s voice.

Instead of using the step mounted on the back, Ferene jumped upwards, landing crouched in the bed of the canvas-covered wagon, sword in hand. The man in the raincoat sat across from another man, in a similarly worn smock, while a woman knelt between them, the ropes around her torso not obscuring her finely-made tunic. In one hand she held a piece of bread, while the other was bound to her side. All three of them stared upwards at Ferene.

“Don’t!” Before Ferene or the men could make a move, the bound woman spoke. “Do not hurt these men!”

Her tone was so commanding, and the order so odd, Ferene froze. Her eyes were locked on the hand of the second man, who had started reaching for a knife before the woman spoke up. Rather than stabbing him, Ferene grabbed the weapon with her empty hand and tossed it out the back of the wagon.

“Why?” Ferene asked, still holding her sword. Neither of the men moved, both of them staring at her weapon.

The woman, despite her situation, smiled up at Ferene. “They kidnapped me, but they aren’t bad people. Could you untie me? You two won’t try anything while she does that, will you?”

The woman on the floor looked first to the man in the raincoat, who nodded. The man in the smock did the same. Still confused, Ferene walked forward, kneeling in front of the woman to start working on the ropes. There were three of them - one around her lower rib cage and her elbow, another around her thighs and her hand. The third one bound her ankles together. When Ferene untied the last one, she stood up to her full height, putting her chest level with the kneeling Ferene’s head. When the woman helped her savior up, Ferene stood several heads taller than her.

“Now! As I was trying to say, it would be a lot better for the two of you if you did not go through with your rather insane plan. A lot of people that you know will end up dead. I’d like to a-are you a Hatharen?” Her scolding came to an abrupt stop as she looked up at Ferene.

“My father is.”

“Oh, half and half! Just like Linara! How exciting. Now-“

“You know Linara?” Ferene asked.

The woman seemed a little surprised at the interruption, looking at Ferene for a moment before nodding. “Yes, we’ll talk about that later. Now!” She turned to the two men, once again trying to start. “I want to make an arrangement with the two of you, and, by extension, your people. If you are facing extortion, perhaps instead of trying to kidnap me, you could have asked me for help.”

The two stared at her for a moment, then exchanged a glance with each other. “We ain’t got money to begin with.” Raincoat said.

“No way you’d send a group of profess’nal soldiers out to help a buncha peasants.”

“The army is there specifically to defend the population. Now, your group may not be citizens of Wellant, but if the group is causing large enough problems near the border, they are worth looking into. Just a show of force can be enough to drive away rabble.”

“They ain’t rabble. They got a fort. They’re trained soldiers themselves.”

The objection did nothing to halt the woman’s positivity. “So a military threat, along our border? Even more of a reason to mobilize a force. Tell me what they have done to you.”

“They claimed the land. They take a part of the farmer’s harvest, as a tax. If you resist they’ll kill you, burn your house down as a warning. There was another hamlet nearby they destroyed. Put the skeletons on spikes. We think the ones they didn’t kill they brought back to their fort.”

Ferene listened to the conversation in silence, up until then. She became restless, hearing the details. Angry. “How many of them are there? What’s the fort like?”

All three of the other people in the wagon turned to look at her, suddenly remembering she was there. “Old stone wall surrounding some buildings. Got a gate, too. Never seen more than ten at once.”

“I’ll kill them.” She said,

After a moment of silence, the woman spoke up. “You two, why don’t you clean up here. I’m going to go have a private talk with this one.” Walking around Ferene, she climbed down the back of the wagon. “Come on, let’s talk elsewhere. Introduce ourselves properly.”

Ferene followed.

“My name is Cerise. I’m a noble in Wellant.”

“I’m Ferene.”

Cerise blinked, looking up at Ferene as they stood in the woods behind the tavern. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ferene. I’m very, very glad you showed up when you did. I always wanted a big, strong woman to save me, though the circumstances I imagined were usually different than the ones I found myself in. However!” She coughed. “I’d like to request that you take me back to Wellant. I can tell you about Linara on the way, and when we get there, we can discuss what to do about the fort full of crazy murderers.”

The small woman was strange, but she was right. Fighting ten trained soldiers alone was exactly what Ferene would have done before she met Linara, and it was exactly the kind of thing that would have ended in her death. As much as she wanted to fight to the death against those scum, there was more she wanted to do. “Fine.” She said,

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A smile spreading across her face, Cerise grabbed Ferene’s gauntleted hand. “Wonderful! I’ll get to introduce my savior to everyone. We’ll send those two on their way, and the two of us will travel north into Wellant together! A romantic walk through the countryside. I can show you all the sights.”

Though Ferene didn’t smile back, she found herself unable to do anything but nod in response to the statement. Cerise’s smile completely overwhelmed her with positivity, the woman’s smile containing too much joy for Ferene to disagree with her description of the plan.

“So you know Linara?”

“Yes, I met her once. Only once, when I visited Olentor. Very nice. Very tall. Didn’t talk to me much at all.” Ferene wasn’t sure how to respond to that, only nodding. “How do you know her?”

“She saved me from a mistake I made.” Ferene said, then added, “We saved some children together after that.”

The second part brought Cerise’s smile back. “Comrades in arms fighting to save the helpless! What happened after that?”

“She decided we didn’t work well together. She told me how to find a Hatharen village, and we went our separate ways.”

Her smile faded slightly. “Well, let’s get back to the others, and tell them the plan. We can talk more on the road.”

Ferene hated leaving the problem behind her, letting the two go, wagon and all. She tried to think about all the times she had walked away from potential evil, potential wrongness. In Cefgras, she killed the worst person she could find. How many smaller criminals remained? How many much worse people did she not come across? This was no different. Except, this time, she knew they were there, and she was walking away from them.

Cerise seemed to not care. Though she walked in the same silence as Ferene, there was an energy about her. She was enjoying herself, Ferene could feel it just from being near her.

“Tell me about the other Hatharen.”

Cerise’s words broke the hour-long silence of the road. “I don’t know what I expected to find there, but I was surprised by them. Many times.”

“Are you going to go back there?”

“I can’t.” The response put them both into silence, for a time.

“What are they like? How do they live? Are they like humans?”

“Humans are naturally violent people, but aren’t very good at it. Hatharen are not violent, but they are masters in it.”

Cerise faltered. “I meant more like, well, day to day life.”

“They live every day like it could be their last. They have a lot of days. They can live forever, but they are drawn to violence. They know they can die. They train, they eat meals as a family, they do what they can to help each other, and they wait for the day they will go out to fight and never come back.”

“What are they fighting?”

Ferene wondered if she had already said too much. Once again, she was walking with someone, and she found herself talking. Travel companions had a way of getting words out of her. “I can’t tell you that.”

Cerise instantly moved on. “You mentioned families. Was your family there?”

“I found one.” She didn’t just miss Rilya, but the rest of them. Telhrian reaching out to her. Sathar silently watching her, waiting to show that he understood her, and standing with her before the elders. Filraehen, looking at her wounds, cooking meals, and smiling with Sathar and Ilraehen. Quiet Alri, who she never really got to know. Even Ilraehen - he wanted to protect them all, and learned that he was wrong about her. Ferene wished she could have stayed with them, wished the world was different.

“Brothers and sisters? Parents, relatives?”

“Six others. Unrelated. Three pairs assigned to each other for stupid reasons. One family.”

“I…see.”

They fell back into silence that was only broken when Cerise asked for a break. The woman looked exhausted. Despite her size, she had kept up with Ferene’s pace for the first third of the day, but it had clearly taken a lot out of her. Ferene guided her off the road and sat down, Cerise sitting beside her. The woman panted, unbuttoning her outer shirt. “This was not made to be worn while walking this long.”

“How did you get caught?” The tunic was obviously very well made, but the woman seemed incomplete. She had nothing but the clothes she was wearing. No weapons or bags of any kind.

“I left the city for a short walk, without telling anyone. A very bad thing to do. I stopped to chat with those two as they passed by, and they realized I was worth something. I tried to do what I was taught, and talk them out, but they very quickly gagged me. Then I was in the back of the wagon, heading for the border.”

“What were you taught to do?”

She smiled at Ferene. “Secure my safety. Don’t run, because I could get hurt if they chased. Try to reason with them, offer them what they want, within reason. Don’t get on their bad side. Don’t try to escape.”

Ferene didn’t understand that, but decided not to push the issue. Cerise leaned against her, panting slightly less heavily.

“Did you get along with your family?” She asked after another long silence.

“I did.”

Cerise stopped leaning on Ferene. “Do you dislike me?”

Ferene shrugged in response. “We just met.”

“I feel like you’re avoiding my questions.”

“I’m not good at talking.”

Cerise laughed. “You aren’t deliberately avoiding giving me an answer? That’s sort of cute.”

“I don’t understand.”

Leaning on her again, Cerise rested her head on Ferene’s arm. “Do you have a lover?”

“I have two.”

The woman’s eyebrows went up. “Would you like a third?”

“We just met.”

Once more, Cerise laughed, sitting up on her own again. “My older sister told me that if I did that to someone, they’d be falling over themselves to give me whatever I wanted. I guess she was talking about men, and not women.”

“Did what?” Ferene asked.

Cerise stood up, buttoning up her shirt. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s keep going.”

The sound of hooves reached Ferene’s ears after only half an hour of walking. Rapid, heavy pounding from the direction they came from. Turning around, Ferene pushed Cerise behind her while she drew her sword with the other. Four riders bore down on them, kicking up a cloud of dirt in their wake. Two of them had short lances, the other two swords. All four wore the same kind of metal chestplate, with their limbs unarmored.

The riders came to a stop, fanning out in a half-circle around the two of them. “There she is, just like the farmers told us,” the first one said, the man smiling as he reached up to push his black hair out of his eyes. “Cerise. I’d like you to come with us.”

“What farmers?” Cerise asked from behind Ferene.

“A pair peasants working under us came back from the market short-handed. We asked them how they were going to pay us back, and after a bit of convincing, they told us that they had intended to give us a certain someone worth a good ransom.”

Ferene felt Cerise shiver. “W-where will you take me, if I go with you?”

“Somewhere safer than the open road. Who knows what might happen to you here, without proper protection. A single body guard is not nearly enough for someone of your status.”

Ferene looked up at the speaker, then at the others. Their equipment was better quality than most criminals, and they all moved with the confidence of trained soldiers. Behind her, Cerise let out a sigh. “I’ll go with you, if you insist.”

“We do.”

The speaker raised a hand, and Ferene burst into motion, spinning to her side just in time to block a sword swing from one of the riders that had moved to encircle them. Cerise screamed as one of the others grabbed her. Ferene struck the rider that attacked her, slicing her sword across the woman’s thigh, dodging out of the way as the wounded horse toppled over.

Turning, she saw one of the others toss Cerise to the rider that spoke, the short woman being handled like baggage as the man slung her across the front of his saddle. The third rider charged directly at Ferene, but she moved to the side of his horse opposite his spear, swinging upwards at him. Her sword hit his breastplate and slid off, but not before he was knocked from his saddle, trailing awkwardly behind his horse as the beast continued to run. The last two turned their steeds and kicked at the beasts’ sides.

Ferene specialized in running, so she ran. As hard and fast as she could, she tried to close the space between her and the two retreating horses. Just a few strides. A horse had twice as many legs, but weighed more, and one of the two animals, the one that mattered, was carrying both an armed and armored man as well as Cerise. Ferene reached out, her hand touching the horse’s hips, her fingers sliding underneath the strap wrapping around the back legs.

Before she could think of what to do next, the mount outpaced her. Ferene lost her footing, being pulled forward, her grip tight. Panicking, the animal ran to the side, Ferene’s extra weight throwing off its balance. The rider didn’t swing his weapon at her, unable to reach her without striking his horse. In front of her, Ferene saw Cerise, hanging across the front of the saddle, looking at her, the woman’s eyes wide with fear.

The horse came to a stop in protest of the three people’s weight, panicking and kicking at Ferene as she got her feet back under her. Before the rider could make another run for it, Ferene grabbed Cerise by the collar and pulled. The woman easily slid out of the rider’s grasp as he held his sword in one hand and the reins in the other, only keeping his captive in place with the weight of the hand holding the reins.

The man yelled to his companion as he turned to face Ferene, but she was already swinging her oversized sword, one-handed, in a broad, wild stroke aimed at his head. The blade sliced across his neck, and he brought his hand up, trying to stop the massive flow of blood. A few seconds later he fell, the horse turning and running after the other as the final rider fled the scene.

Ferene stood, sword in one hand, Cerise in the other, panting heavily. The last time she had fought trained soldiers, it had gone very, very badly.

“You…you killed them.”

“I said I would.”

“P-please put me down.”

Ferene belatedly set Cerise down, the woman immediately leaning against her, turning away from the sight of the dead man in front of her. She was shaking. “I agreed not to go after them, but I won’t let them take you.” Cerise said something, but Ferene didn’t hear it. “What was that?”

“W-will you be my knight?”

“Sure.”